When I hear that phrase, all I think is a big fat “BEEN THERE, DONE THAT.”

You see, when I was 2 years old, I was diagnosed with high-functioning autism, and even though I didn’t find out the name of my diagnosis until I was 9, I’ve always known that I’m not like other kids my age. I remember being in preschool and seeing the other kids swinging from the monkey bars and running around the playground and playing tag. I tried to mimic their behaviors, but I ended up falling off of the monkey bars, tripping over thin air, and scraping the majority of the skin off of my knees in the process.

That night, I climbed onto my monogrammed step-stool and took a good, hard, long look at myself. I tilted my head back and forth, stuck out my tongue, shrugged my shoulders up and down. I patted my hair, a tiny mass of ebony corkscrews atop my head. I didn’t look much different than the other girls in my class, except for the fact that my mother insisted that I keep my hair short. Then, I realized that there was another layer that I had not yet taken into account.​I loved to learn. I learned how to read when I was 3 or 4, but I am convinced that I was born with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. I pored over the colorful picture books in my classroom and during choice time, I wrote stories of my own. By the end of the year, I had written a series of adventure stories involving myself and my brother, Pablo.

“Mia, don’t you want to play with some other children?” Caren, my preschool teacher, who was very kind and always wanted the best for me, asked.

“No. I’m working on my stories.” I would reply indignantly.

My aide, Hannah, insisted that I play with the other girls. Hannah scared me , so I would give in. Group playtime was always more awkward for me than writing stories on my own. I simply didn’t understand the frivolous games involving plastic baby dolls and Little Tykes kitchenette playsets that the other children seemed to enjoy. What was the point in acting out someone else’s story if I had my own to tell?

I was pretty quiet as a kid because I don’t remember ever having the words to describe exactly how I felt at a given moment. When I finally figured out how to share my stories, I told them to anyone and everyone who would listen. I still do, and I think I always will.

Eventually, the adults in my life read my stories and encouraged me to write more. My grandmother and I play a game where she sets the kitchen timer for thirty minutes and I have that long to write a piece based on the prompt she gives me. The pieces always turn out better than either of us expect they will.

People always ask me how I write and what my thought process is like. I feel like it is not my actual brain that comes up with the words on the paper, but a deep part of my subconscious. My fingers flutter across the keyboard without my exactly knowing how a sentence or paragraph is going to end. Before I know it, I have a piece. Sometimes, I read over my work, not knowing quite how I came up with the wording for certain bits of it, but having this mysterious feeling that what my fingers typed was exactly the right thing that needed to be said at that point.

Back to the main point of this article. I have a lot of friends who are just starting to come into their own, and I have recently found myself wondering, “Why is it that I already have such a burning sense in my heart of the girl I am and the woman I will become?” My main theory is that because I knew I was different so early on in my life, I was forced to figure out--and come to terms with--my identity as early as 5 or 6 years old. Society didn’t have a cut-and-dry place for me, so I had to make my own place.

My friend Tina, who is completely neurotypical, has never really had an identity crisis before high school. We were friends from outside of school before high school started, and she was in the “popular” group at her old school. Now, she feels like the popular group isn’t where she belongs, and of course, that begs the question, where does she belong. I’ve tried to offer suggestions to her, but how I discovered who I am is an extremely unique case and not how most people do it.

I guess my main point is that everyone discovers their true identity in their own time frame and in their own unique way. I may have discovered who I am at an extremely young age, but some people discover it later. Jazz Jennings, who was born male, knew that she was a girly-girl at 2 years old! (If you don’t know who Jazz is, look her up. She’s seriously awesome). Don’t try too hard to rush your identity revelation, it will come to you in its own time. When it comes, you’ll know. It will hit you over the head like a ton of bricks, and you will be so much happier and more confident in yourself afterwards.

You are not alone

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You sound like an amazing and bright person. Keep writing! I have been writing for over 20 years. I wrote and illustrated a children's book about my son with autism called "Tyler's Magic Word Box" and how he found his words. My latest novel is on Amazon. Dreams do come true and I know you'll follow yours!